MEDIA: BROADCASTING; Comedy Central makes the most of an irreverent, and profitable, new cartoon hit.

THE broadcast networks spent millions of dollars this fall producing and promoting shows for the new television season, and generated about as much excitement as the discharge of a flock of pigeons in Central Park.

Instead, the hottest, most-talked-about new program of the television season -- and one of the most profitable -- is an animated show made on a shoestring budget with all the sophistication of construction-paper cutouts.

The show is ''South Park,'' a half-hour cartoon exercise in bathroom jokes, crude language and juvenile grotesquerie that has become a mini-phenomenon for Comedy Central, the six-year-old all-comedy cable channel previously best known for developing the show ''Politically Incorrect'' -- and then losing it to ABC.

''South Park'' is the highest-rated show ever on Comedy Central, having reached a 3.8 rating for its Halloween episode, a spectacular figure for a network that averages a 0.6 rating in prime time. (A rating point for Comedy Central represents 460,000 homes.) It also reaches a large number of younger viewers, whom advertisers most want to reach.

Not surprisingly, the show is already cashing in. ''Six months ago our highest-priced commercial was $7,500,'' said David Cole, the vice president for advertising sales for the network. ''Now for 'South Park' it's $30,000 and up.''

Already, the shows after ''South Park,'' including a nightly takeoff on the news called ''The Daily Show,'' have seen huge jumps in their ratings when ''South Park'' leads into them. ''We had already been ticking up,'' said Doug Herzog, the channel's president. ''This show is kind of like adding jet fuel.''

The show has indeed gone off like a rocket since its debut in August. Its genesis is something of a show business legend. The two young creators of the series, Trey Parker and Matt Stone, were asked by a Hollywood executive to create a video Christmas card last year.

The result, featuring a fistfight between Jesus and Santa Claus over whose holiday Christmas really was, became a cult sensation and helped initiate a bidding war for a series.

Mr. Parker and Mr. Stone made a deal with Comedy Central because they liked the channel's type of humor. ''South Park'' features four third-graders from a town in Colorado famous for U.F.O. sightings. They have adventures like foiling a plot to assassinate Kathy Lee Gifford and hunting deer with anti-aircraft missiles. The series has been praised as hilarious, original and the most irreverent half-hour on television.

Comedy Central produces the show for the modest sum of $250,000 an episode -- and gets to run those episodes an unlimited number of times. By contrast, the typical situation comedy costs a broadcast network about $600,000 for only two showings of each episode.

Comedy Central is also counting on ''South Park'' to extend the distribution of the channel, which now reaches 46 million homes. ''I think this can help drive us to the 60 million mark,'' Mr. Herzog said.

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That sort of growth would make Comedy Central a far more valuable asset to its owners, Viacom and Time Warner Inc. In the meantime, they can count the profits from what is shaping up as the next big merchandising bonanza related to a TV show.

Though only in specialty stores since August, T-shirts featuring the ''South Park'' characters have already become the No. 1 seller in the nation. ''We sold 125,000 in September and that grew to 350,000 last month,'' said Larry Lieberman, the vice president for new-business development for Comedy Central. Deals have already been closed for a ''South Park'' Christmas ornament, a ''South Park'' video game and a ''South Park'' paperback, to be published in July by Pocket Books.

But ''South Park'' has also growing appeal among teen-agers and pre-teens, a fact that the Comedy Central executives seem less eager to acknowledge, mainly because of the show's outrageous content: like the fate of one character, Kenny, who dies a horrible death each week, after which he is eaten by rats, or the high quotient of scatological terms not usually heard on cartoons.

That content rating actually closes the show off from a whole group of advertisers, but the channel seems intent on protecting itself from the type of criticism directed at the show's obvious antecedent, ''Beavis and Butt-head,'' the hit cartoon on MTV. Parents protested that show, saying it inspired children to engage in irresponsible behavior; in one incident, a child set a fire after watching the show.

But no one is letting those concerns stand in the way of the show's raging commercial success. All 13 episodes Comedy Central ordered this season will be shown by the end of January. Repeats will flood Comedy Central until a new batch arrives in July.

If the creators have their way, they will capitalize on the show's soaring popularity and crank up production next season. ''To take the show to a new level we have to do more than 13 a year,'' Mr. Stone said.

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A version of this article appears in print on November 10, 1997, on Page D00011 of the National edition with the headline: MEDIA: BROADCASTING; Comedy Central makes the most of an irreverent, and profitable, new cartoon hit. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe